


To Melt

by Pyrasaur



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fire Magic, Intimacy, Pampering, Platonic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:37:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5711155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrasaur/pseuds/Pyrasaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s always cold, he claims: he’s a skeleton. Good thing Toriel has plenty of warmth to share.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Melt

     Sans enters on a blast of icy wind, his clothing studded with snowflakes like glass shards. Sentry duty, he says. Those frozen roads don’t watch themselves.  
     His hands are cold as marble between Toriel’s fingers, like glass beads strung on magic.  
     What, he says, these old bones? They’re always cold: he’s a _skeleton_.  
     That is no answer Toriel will accept. She clasps his hands tighter, rubs the knobs of his knuckles until some of her heat wears off. Take off that damp jacket, she tells him. Sit by the fire. Hot tea will help.  
     Something shifts behind his walls, some crackling surrender within his soul like ice in spring while he stares at their knitted hands. Sure, Tori, he says. Tea sounds great. Put lots of sugar in it, please.

     He takes the tea mug and laces his fingers around it. He sinks into Toriel’s fireside chair, and lifts his chin so she can tuck the blanket snug. His slippers have thawed to sopping wetness; Toriel removes them and her hands warm each bead-cold bone of his feet.  
     She’s so nice to him, Sans mumbles into the mug. Way too nice. Something must be … a _foot_.  
     Not at all, Toriel tells him, still laughing. If she did something sinister, the purpose of being nice to him would be …de _feet_ ed.  
     She’s worded it in a clunking, clumsy way but Sans chuckles unbothered, slumping deeper into the chair’s embrace. And he spreads toe bones, the better for her sizable fingers to fit between.  
     Then there is only the hearth fire’s voice, and Toriel holds her tongue, wondering if he will ask. She hopes so, hopes with a fervor that surprises her.  
     Could, Sans ventures. Could she do that thing with her magic?  
     She has palms full of fire in the time it took her to smile.

     This skill is a relic Toriel gladly calls back into her memory. Her fire can burn, and cook, and burst menacing at foes but she never, never forgets that fire warms those brave enough to offer themselves to it.  
     Sans’ eyelids droop as he watches; his own magic aura hums restful and Toriel’s flames take to it, curling red and orange and generous over the clothed angles of his body. Heat blooms in the air. Flames lick toward the ceiling, and gutter, and fade away.  
     She pats his shin bone. Better, she asks?  
     Blinking eventually, setting the mug aside, Sans hums mild. Nearly asleep already and too content to bother with a turn of phrase. 

     This is a job well done. This is a good thing to have kindled in the dear fellow who’s got a joke for everything and a smile for everyone but he won’t _tell_ her why dark circles stain under his eyes. Toriel cannot resist moving to sit on the chair’s arm, moving to hold her fingerpads near his temple where his aura hangs dense.  
     Here, she says, fangs poking out as she grins. His nose still looks cold.  
     One last flame wicks along his magic, over his cheekbone — and onto the rim of that darling little hole in his face.  
     Sans blows out a breath like a wet-fluttering laugh, his eyelights crossing to watch the flame fade. He doesn’t have a nose pun for this, it seems, but he leans his skull’s curve into the dip of her palm and the tingle of contact is plenty of payoff.  
     Thanks, Tori, he murmurs. Feels good to warm up.  
     She strokes his head while he drifts off, and she couldn’t agree more.


End file.
